Craig Nolan

This week’s ASX Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… Bio-Gene Technology. The company’s shares leapt after revealing it scored a slice of two United States defence grants. Alterity Therapeutics unveiled successful phase two clinical trial results, Aston Minerals’ plans for a merger with a fellow goldie won market support and Canterbury Resources discovered a new copper zone.

Metals used for steel alloys, once considered the poor cousins to iron ore, are starting to come into vogue, with both big and small players moving heaven and earth to uncover the next big discovery of metals vital to the massive global steel industry. The coveted group includes manganese, vanadium, molybdenum and others and Australia has rich resources of all of them.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… AusQuest Ltd. The company’s shares leapt after reporting a stunning copper-gold porphyry discovery in Peru. Hydrix revealed a $2.8 million contract extension with a European medical firm, Pentanet showed improved financials in its 5G and gaming business and Pointerra updated the market with news of improved customer receipts for its digital twin business.

The WA Government has stumped up $175,000 for research into the extraction of rare earths, predominantly within the State’s Yilgarn region, with Perth-based geological firm RSC Consulting to lead the study. RSC will work closely with respected WA junior mining firms Terrain Minerals, Dreadnought Resources, Narryer Metals, Pluto Resources and Curtin University’s Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Trailblazer program.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Wellard Limited. The company is quitting the livestock transport business and spiked on news it has sold a ship for US$50 million. Condor Energy increased its gas resource by 147 per cent, Western Gold Resources revealed a preferred contractor for its Gold Duke operation and Terrain Minerals kicked-off drilling at its Lort River nickel-copper project.

A consortium of South Korean mega-energy firms is set to enter into an agreement with Pilot Energy to jointly develop the Mid West clean energy project in the Perth Basin to secure a supply of ammonia. The ammonia will be used in coal-fired power plants. The consortium received more than $2m in funding last November from the Korea Export-Import Bank to conduct a feasibility study on the project.

ABx Group’s 83 per cent owned subsidiary ALCORE is set to produce aluminium fluoride at the company’s pilot plant, which will be established at a facility adjacent to Rio Tinto Aluminium’s Bell Bay smelter in northern Tasmania. ALCORE plans to prove its world-first process to produce hydrogen fluoride from smelter waste, which will then be converted into aluminium fluoride, essential for the aluminium smelter industry.

Horizon Minerals has poured its first gold bars from ore hauled from its Boorara project, near the famous mining town of Kalgoorlie in WA, under its ore sale agreement revealed last year with Norton Gold Fields’ Paddington mill. Proceeds from the sale are expected to be pumped into the company’s bank account within the week.

Horizon Minerals has pumped $6.345 million into its bank account via an at-market share placement of 4.5c per share with a further $3.28 million expected shortly, all earmarked for the development of its soon-to-be producing gold deposits. Privately-owned Golden Crane Holdings will stump up the entire $9.625 million via a two-tranche placement in exchange for approximately 213 million shares in Horizon.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Sparc Technologies. The company is developing new-age hydrogen technology using sunlight to split water without the use of an electrolyser. Argent Biopharma raised funds at a significant premium to its last closing price while Australian Mines boosted its scandium resource and Dimerix revealed a tie-in with a Japanese pharmaceutical firm to treat kidney disease.

St George Mining has joined forces with two of Brazil’s leading government scientific agencies to develop an optimal downstream process for the company’s niobium and rare earth mineralisation at its Araxá project. The company recently secured $20 million in funding to acquire 100 per cent of the project located within the renowned mining region of Minas Gerais in south-east Brazil.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… Tasman Resources. The South Australian mineral explorer has a series of impressive targets to follow up with a drilling program. Bridge SaaS received some love from a substantial shareholder keen to increase its stake in the firm, while other movers and shakers this week were New Frontier Minerals and Axel REE.

Aurumin has kicked off its latest 1600m drill program and will launch into its prospective Plum Pudding deposit where a mouth-watering 18m drill hit graded 25.8g/t gold at its Central Sandstone project about 520km northeast of Perth. The company also plans to target extensional and infill drilling at its Shillington deposit and aims to crash through the million-ounce milestone at the project shortly.

Reach Resources has anointed global mining technical services firm Mining Plus to independently review the expansion potential of its Murchison South gold project in WA and to prioritise targets for a new-year drilling campaign. It follows Reach’s own review that identified substantial potential and highlighted immediate drilling opportunities at the project, with plans now made for a 12-hole RC drill program at the site.

With the critical minerals boom in full swing Lycaon Resources is eagerly awaiting a suite of niobium assay results from a drill campaign at its Stansmore niobium-rare earths project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region. The company is looking to identify anomalous pathfinder and trace elements that will demonstrate potential for its targeted 500m diameter magnetic intrusive feature to host critical metals mineralisation.

Horizon Minerals has dispatched its first load of gold-bearing ore from the company’s Boorara operation near Kalgoorlie for processing at the nearby Paddington mill, as part of its recently revealed tie-in with Hamptons Transport. The company says 54,380 tonnes of ore has been hauled to the mill and is expected to result in an estimated $5.78 million minus processing costs.

Terrain Minerals has wheeled in an RC drill rig to probe the potential bedrock source of gold discovered in the supergene zone during air core drilling at its Wildflower gold project in WA’s Mid West region. The 16-hole drill program is a follow up to the successful air core program that unveiled a potential new gold discovery, returning 9m grading 1.17 grams per tonne gold.

Aurumin is set to unleash the drill-bit again to try to replicate a previous stellar 18m drill hit grading 25.8g/t gold at its Central Sandstone project in WA about 520km northeast of Perth. The company plans to target extensional and infill drilling at its Shillington and Plum Pudding deposits and is hoping to breach the million-ounce milestone at the project soon.

Terrain Minerals has kicked-off a ground-based EM survey to better define four very curious, potentially nickel-copper conductors at its Lort River project that sits in the same geological belt as IGO’s huge nickel-copper discovery in the renowned Albany-Fraser Belt. Terrain believes a geophysical “eye” feature identified at Lort River shares strong similarities with IGO’s “eye” that was identified prior to its discovery of the large producing Nova-Bollinger operation in the region in 2012.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Aldoro Resources. The Namibian explorer stacked on 201% after jagging continuous niobium from a trench chip-sampling program at its Kameelburg project. Other runners include Macro Metals which secured $4 million from an earthmoving company that joined its share register and began drilling for manganese in WA’s Pilbara region, while other movers and shakers this week were Invion and Petratherm.

Reach Resources has uncovered more thick rare earth hits at its 100 per cent-owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne region, hitting an impressive 76m grading 1677 parts per million total rare earth oxides. Assays from the remaining 22 drill-holes returned consistent zones of the valuable magnet rare earth oxides, returning up to 1809ppm with the potential for additional high-grade zones.

Octava Minerals has spotted visible signs of the critical mineral, antimony, in drill holes at the company’s Yallalong project that sits in the Mid West region of WA, with assays due early next year. Drilling is nearly complete at the company’s Discovery prospect with the rig then set to move to its Central antimony prospect for a maiden nine-hole program.

Larvotto Resources has scored $30 million from new and existing investors, ensuring it is well-funded to intensify exploration of its Hillgrove antimony-gold operation near Armidale in NSW. The placement will see 57.7 million shares issued at 52c apiece and follows on from the company recently banking a total of $14.2m from an offtake pre-payment and option conversions.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … PhosCo. The phosphate explorer was awarded a critical exploration permit and signed an important agreement to collaborate on developing Tunisia’s northern phosphate hub. Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals ran hard after being given the green-light for its phase-three drug trials, while other movers and shakers this week were AVJennings and Errawarra Resources.

ChemX Materials has locked-in an agreement to provide private firm Vytas with high-purity assay services on quartz and synthetic silica samples and expects revenue of between $15,000 to $30,000 per month. The firms will explore the potential to utilise ChemX’s equipment and facilities when the company’s 24tpa pilot plant in the Perth suburb of O’Connor is completed.

Meeka Metals is gearing up for gold mining to begin in March with significant progress made with its processing infrastructure and accommodation village at the company’s Murchison gold project in WA. Its much larger “game-changing” processing plant equipment is on site and expected to dramatically increase its pre-feasibility numbers in the upcoming definitive-feasibility-study due in December.

Empire Energy is now well on its way to being the first to produce gas out of the NT’s biblical scale Beetaloo gas basin after Macquarie Bank put up a $65m funding package for it, avoiding the need

Strickland Metals has nailed a 41m drill hit grading 4 grams per tonne gold in Serbia that was part of a massive 272m intersection going 1.8 g/t gold equivalent. The broader intersection also showed copper, zinc, lead and silver. The new results are from Strickland’s Shanac deposit within its wholly-owned 5.4-million-ounce gold-equivalent Rogozna project in the Balkan country of Serbia.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Petratherm. The critical mineral explorer discovered titanium and heavy minerals in historical South Australian core library samples. InFocus Group Holdings ran hard after nabbing a potential multi-million dollar agreement to develop a digital gaming product, while other movers and shakers this week were Noviqtech and Narryer Metals.

Aurumin non-exec director and businessman Daniel Raihani has moved into the managing director’s chair at the gold and iron ore explorer after the departure of company founder Brad Valiukas. Raihani has been a non-executive director at Aurumin for the past year and is an experienced accountant and businessman with various property and commercial interests.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is set to hammer further gold targets with its fourth air-core drill program at its Pinjin project in WA’s renowned 30-million ounce Laverton Tectonic zone, one of the state’s biggest gold endowment regions and host to several producing gold mines. The program will target the company’s prospective Kirgella East gold prospect with a planned 4000m maiden drill campaign.

Reach Resources has intercepted thick rare earth hits at its 100 per cent owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne region, scoring a whopping 109m running 1109 parts per million total rare earth oxides. Initial assays from 18 holes drilled at the company’s Pelops target returned significant intersections of rare earths from surface, with multiple holes ending in mineralisation.